Last time, every time: Record-setting Elon softball slugger puts meaning in swings

Tomeka Watson, Elon’s career leader in home runs, RBI, hits and runs scored, has compiled a batting average of .414 from her lead-off spot this season.

Scott Muthersbaugh / Times-News

By Adam Smith / Times-News

Published: Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 12:56 AM.

ELON — For each of her 178 plate appearances this softball season, Elon University outfielder Tomeka Watson has stepped in with an approach that’s focused not on records or statistics, but the finality of being a senior.

There’s a simple, powerful, fleeting meaning at work.

“She always says she swings her bat like it’s her last time every time,” teammate and close friend Camille Hill said. “Because, realistically, these games, they’re winding down. And so she’s just like, ‘I’m just going to keep swinging as hard as I can.’ She always says that. That’s always the biggest thing for her.”

The window on her career is drawing to a close, indeed. Elon (21-30) plays Samford (14-33) this morning in a single-elimination game, a matchup of the lowest seeds to open the Southern Conference Tournament at UNC Greensboro.

But whenever and wherever the end occurs, no matter the finishing touches Watson produces, her lofty place in school history already has been secured.

She will leave as Elon’s all-time leader in home runs (34), RBI (125), hits (256) and runs scored (161) — while having formed a study in persistence and confidence and rising to meet challenges.

“When she sets goals for herself, she goes and gets them,” Elon coach Kathy Bocock said. “If she doesn’t reach them, then she works a little harder and tries to make adjustments to be able to. That’s what Tomeka does. That’s who Tomeka is.”

ELON — For each of her 178 plate appearances this softball season, Elon University outfielder Tomeka Watson has stepped in with an approach that’s focused not on records or statistics, but the finality of being a senior.

There’s a simple, powerful, fleeting meaning at work.

“She always says she swings her bat like it’s her last time every time,” teammate and close friend Camille Hill said. “Because, realistically, these games, they’re winding down. And so she’s just like, ‘I’m just going to keep swinging as hard as I can.’ She always says that. That’s always the biggest thing for her.”

The window on her career is drawing to a close, indeed. Elon (21-30) plays Samford (14-33) this morning in a single-elimination game, a matchup of the lowest seeds to open the Southern Conference Tournament at UNC Greensboro.

But whenever and wherever the end occurs, no matter the finishing touches Watson produces, her lofty place in school history already has been secured.

She will leave as Elon’s all-time leader in home runs (34), RBI (125), hits (256) and runs scored (161) — while having formed a study in persistence and confidence and rising to meet challenges.

“When she sets goals for herself, she goes and gets them,” Elon coach Kathy Bocock said. “If she doesn’t reach them, then she works a little harder and tries to make adjustments to be able to. That’s what Tomeka does. That’s who Tomeka is.”

At the start of this season, Watson repeated an inner reminder.

You’ve worked hard. You want to go out on top.

What has followed has been top-of-the-charts stuff.

Watson ranks first in the league in batting (.414 average), hits (63), total bases (116), stolen bases (25 in 26 attempts), slugging percentage (.763) and on-base percentage (.506) this year. Her home run (14) and RBI (31) totals also are among the conference’s elite this season.

In February, she tied an NCAA Division I record by blasting homers in six straight games — “that was absolutely ridiculous,” Hill said — and after 26 games, before teams committed to pitching around her, she had piled up 13 homers, an Elon single-season record by March 24, the midpoint of the regular season.

At the plate, in the batter’s boxes where all that damage has been done from the lead-off spot, calmness envelops her swing-like-it’s-your-last mentality.

“I just relax. I don’t get tense. I don’t stress out,” Watson said. “I already have it in my mind that there’s no pitcher out there that I can’t hit. So there’s no need for me to tense up or put pressure on myself. I just have to relax and see the ball and hit it.”

Watson, whose speed might be her most overlooked facet, was hurting last month during a game against Western Carolina, her left shoulder feeling the cumulative wear and tear of her trademark head-first slides.

Then, all of a sudden, on a fly ball headed toward the gap for extra bases, there was Watson, zooming and tracking it down in spectacular fashion.

“It was just a super catch,” Bocock said. “She had to make a great running start on it and make a great play on it. When that big play needs to be made, she’s going to be the one who wants that challenge. It’s something that I’ve seen over the last four years.”

The Phoenix would have missed out on those memory-imprinting images had Watson stayed closer to her Jackson, Ga., home and played up a level in competition at Georgia.

She went on an official visit there — making the drive that’s about 90 minutes to the Athens campus — before ultimately picking Elon, then under the direction of former coach Patti Raduenz.

“It was my choice to turn them down,” she said, referring to Georgia. “When I came on my visit here, I just felt like it was home. I felt like I was not just another person. I felt important. I felt like this was a good place for me to spend four years.

“Other places, they just treat you like a recruit, you’re just another girl visiting the school. When I came here, I didn’t feel that way.”

And the inviting, small-town aspects of the Elon community actually didn’t seem so small.

“I live on a dirt road. Our closest Wal-Mart is like 15 minutes away,” Watson said, breaking into a laugh. “So this is like a city compared to where I’m from. This is a step up in the right direction.”

In 2010, when Elon was on its way to a school-record 38 victories, its first Southern Conference Tournament title and an NCAA Tournament appearance, Watson hit .373 and emerged as the league’s Freshman of the Year.

Bocock, then an Elon assistant coach, became a preacher of a message that has endured.

“ ‘I want you to be the best outfielder in the SoCon,’ ” Bocock said. “I talked to her a lot back then, and I said that a lot. And to me, over the years, she has definitely gotten herself to that point.”

Watson, according to intel from Hill, can slip into nap-mode on a couch or fall asleep while riding in a car within a moment’s notice. She, of course, hasn’t slept on improving her softball skills.

Every December, at home during holiday breaks from school, Watson dutifully has taken hitting lessons from Serita Brooks, a former Florida State All-American. Her most recent swing sessions there focused on power and patiently selecting good pitches.

“She watches me hit, videos it, I watch myself swing, she pitches to me; I get to just feel things that she’s trying to teach me,” Watson said. “She always sends me home with things to work with. Then me and my dad will work and come back and see how I’m looking.

“It’s just about working on your weaknesses. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to perfect my craft. I can see myself learning more about the game.”

The finished product, who again bats lead-off today as Elon tries to keep its season alive, is a hitting machine Hill has labeled “The Great Tomeka Watson.”

“She hates that. She hates when all the spotlight, all the attention is on her. She just wants to be able to go out there and do her thing,” Hill said. “She’s very, very selfless in that respect. I think that’s what really makes her a great teammate and a great person.

“The records, yeah, she knows they’re there. But she doesn’t play for them. And she’s not content with being the best in the league, but us finishing down at the bottom in our conference. She hates that, too.”